366 rroceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



InA.D. 667 (according to the Four Masters, the Venerable Bede, and 

 others), St. Colman, having quarrelled with Wilfridus at Lindisfarne, 

 left that place, where he had been bishop for seven-and-twenty years 

 previously, and taking with him all the Scots (Irish) among the monks, 

 and in addition, some thirty English, he sailed away to Inishbofin, 

 where he settled and founded the abbey in Knock-quarter. To quote the 

 words of the Venerable Bede (given in Hardiman's jS'otes on O'Flaherty's 

 "H-Iar Connaught"), " Secessit ad insulam quondam parvam, quae ad 

 occidentalem plagam ab Hibernia procul secreta, sermone Scotico Inis- 

 hofinde^ id est, ' Insula Vitulse Albae ' nuncupatur." "When they had 

 got settled on the island a quarrel arose between the Irish monks and 

 their English brethren, who apparently did not get the best of the 

 dispute, for St. Colman founded a monastery for them at Magh-eo on 

 the mainland, but seems himself to have lived mostly in Inishbofin, 

 where he died on the 8th of August, 676. 



From this time forth until the tenth century, when : all mention 

 of the abbey ceases, there are several references made by the annalists 

 to the island, but these all relate to the deaths of various abbots or 

 bishops, and no mention is made of any other population than the 

 monastic one. 



After this tbere is a large gap in the records. Hardiman says : — 

 " From the seventh century to the seventeenth this island was little 

 known beyond the neighbouring shores of lar Connaught and Umhall 

 ui Mhaille ; but during the latter eventful century it was considered 

 of importance by the then contending parties in Ireland, and was alter- 

 nately fortified by them.'" The only break in this long period of silence 

 is the traditional account of tb,e possession, for a time, of the islands by 

 a piratical crew, and of the establishment there, in the sixteenth 

 century, of a fort and station for her fleet by the celebrated Grace 

 O'Malley. 



On the 14th February, 1652, the islands surrendered to the Parlia- 

 mentary forces, and it was at first resolved to repair the fort, which 

 seems to have been done, for it was occupied for three years after- 

 wards, and in 1655, it was recommended to the Council of State that 

 the garrison should be withdrawn, the works abandoned, and that 

 £600, along with the right to " sell the barque Elizabeth, of Galway, 

 which was sent to Baffin to carry limestone- there," should be granted 

 to any undertaker who would block up the harbour, 



1 "H-Iar Connaught," p. 116, footnote. 



- The limestone referred to was probably the cut stone doorway and corner 

 stoues of the fort. 



